starvation

Starvation, disease are killing thousands of children in Boko Haram-infested region: survey

(Newser) -
Thousands of children have died of starvation and disease in Boko Haram-ravaged northeastern Nigeria, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday, quoting a new survey that's forcing Nigerian officials to stop denying the crisis. The Paris-based group hopes official recognition of the calamity in which "thousands are dying" will help...
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Family says Elizabeth Hawk wanted to live on 'water and sunlight' herself

(Newser) -
A vegan Pennsylvania woman who was, per her family, determined to live on "water and sunlight" apparently took her extreme dietary views too far and has now been accused of starving her 11-month-old baby, feeding him nothing but fruit and nuts, CBS Pittsburgh reports. The child's father, who'...
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Officials say 44 truckloads of aid delivered to Madaya

(Newser) -
At least five US citizens are among those suffering in the Syrian town of Madaya, where UN convoys have arrived with much-needed food. "Right now, my kids are starving from hunger," the wife of a 43-year-old naturalized US citizen, who left Pennsylvania in 2006 to start an apple...
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UN convoy heading to Madaya, where thousands are trapped

(Newser) -
Residents of a Syrian town trapped in the nation's civil war are finally getting some desperately needed relief: UN convoys with food and medicine headed to Madaya on Monday, reports the BBC . Shocking stories have emerged about the plight of the estimated 40,000 people there. Doctors Without Borders...
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Madaya has become 'an open-air prison'

(Newser) -
Tens of thousands of people are trapped in the rural Syrian town of Madaya, which has been caught in a tug-of-war between rebels and pro-government forces—and Doctors Without Borders says the situation is so bad that at least 23 people have died of starvation since Dec. 1, including six...
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Old male likely died of starvation after devoting most of his energy to sex

(Newser) -
A 5-foot-long, 110-pound elderly male porpoise—which likely washed up on Worthing beach south of London before being dumped more than a mile inland—appears to have devoted so much of its energy to mating that it ultimately died of starvation and hypothermia. "The male porpoise was in a...
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Lisa Coleman guilty in 9-year-old's death

(Newser) -
A Texas woman convicted of the starvation and torture death of her girlfriend's 9-year-old son a decade ago was executed this evening. Lisa Coleman, 38, received a lethal injection after the Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to spare her. She was pronounced dead at 6:24pm local time,...
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Scientists wanted to see effects of limited food

(Newser) -
With those in occupied territories during World War II facing the threat of starvation, American researchers sought to learn more about the effects of limited food—by starving their own subjects. "Will you starve that they be better fed?" asked a volunteer-seeking brochure showing children on its cover. Hundreds...
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Time for this disturbing trend to die: Lisa Schwarzbaum

(Newser) -
Matthew McConaughey is the latest in a long line of actors to lose a frightening amount of weight for a role, in his case to portray a man dying of AIDS in Dallas Buyers Club. But this trend is "neither impressive, nor proof of a serious commitment to art,...
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Beirut gets tough, tries to halt violence from spilling over border

(Newser) -
Lebanese forces fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace today, the first time they have done so since Syria's uprising broke out three years ago, said security officials. The move suggests Beirut is trying to enforce greater respect for its borders in the hopes of slowing...
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Damascus suburbs being starved out

(Newser) -
The days of dogs and cats living in Damascus or its hard-hit suburbs might be numbered, at least according to local clerics. With reports surfacing of regime loyalists using starvation tactics against rebel-held areas like Muadhamiya, Syrian clerics have issued a fatwa telling the faithful that is OK to eat...
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Cannibalism on the rise amid food shortage, informants say

(Newser) -
Rumors of cannibalism are emerging from North Korea during a food shortage that may have killed 10,000 people last year, Global Post reports. In one gruesome tale, authorities allegedly executed a father for killing and eating two of his kids: "While his wife was away on business he...
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3 charged, including woman who previously starved man to death

(Newser) -
Three people have been charged with kidnapping and other offenses after four mentally challenged adults were found chained and starving in the sub-basement of a Philadelphia apartment building. The building's landlord discovered the prisoners on Saturday, lying in their own filth in a 10-by-15-foot room, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports....
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Couple's baby died after being fed only soy milk, apple juice

(Newser) -
In April 2004, the 6-week-old son of Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas starved to death, and Georgia’s top court today upheld the couple’s murder convictions and life sentences from 2007. A court initially found the first-time parents guilty of murder after investigators discovered they fed the boy mostly...
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All under the age of 5, according to the US

(Newser) -
The UN has said that the famine in Somalia has killed tens of thousands, and the first specific estimate to emerge paints an even more heartbreaking picture. More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died in just the last 90 days in the southern part of...
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He got wedged in 27 years ago

(Newser) -
It's sort of a good news-bad news situation for one Louisiana family. On one hand, they finally know what happened to Joseph Schexnider, who vanished in 1984—on the other, he died inside a local bank chimney 27 years ago. Construction workers renovating a historic bank discovered skeletal remains...
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Dear Leader parties; no 'gifts' for Koreans

(Newser) -
North Korea held its usual lavish celebration to mark Kim Jong Il’s 69th birthday today—even though the desperately poor country couldn’t afford to hand out its usual “birthday gift” of food rations to the people. In one northeastern province, even ruling party officials haven’t gotten...
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William Coleman is protesting conviction, claims innocence

(Newser) -
William Coleman wants to starve himself to death in prison, and now a court has given him the right to argue for doing so. The 49-year-old British man was convicted to eight years in a US prison on charges of raping his wife, and has been attempting a hunger strike...
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Democracy ruled, says foreman; others cite depression

(Newser) -
Majority rule was key to the survival of the trapped Chilean miners, their foreman told the Guardian in one of the first accounts of their two months spent trapped underground. “Everything was voted on,” said Luis Urzúa from a hospital bed. “You just have to speak...
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Cash-strapped owner fed them occasional chicken

(Newser) -
At least 11 Siberian tigers have starved to death in a Chinese zoo run by an owner strapped for cash. The tigers require 20 pounds of meat a day, but zoo operators only provided the big cats with a chicken carcass every couple of days. Two of the tigers, apparently...
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